Product Description: The Power of Children examines Christian teaching about children in the context of family life in the Roman world. Specifically, author Margaret Y. MacDonald measures the impact of the New Testament's household codes (Colossians 3:18-4:1; Ephesians 5:21-6:9; the Pastoral letters) for understanding the status and role of children in Christian homes and assemblies...read more

Product Description: The author studies the Pauline corpus in order to trace the process of institutionalisation in the Pauline communities. She claims that development can be traced since we have not only letters from Paul himself, but also the Pastoral epistles from the beginning of the second century, as well as Ephesians and Colossians, writings which are characteristic of the ambiguous period following the disappearance of the earliest authorities...read more

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A study of how women figured in public reaction to the church from New Testament times to the second century CE. MacDonald shows the conviction of pagan writers that female initiative was central to Christianity's development, and the belief that women inclined toward excesses in religion. Concern in the New Testament and early Christian texts about the respectability of women is seen in a new light when one appreciates that outsiders focused on early church women and their activities as a reflection of the group as a whole. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The author studies the Pauline corpus in order to trace the process of institutionalisation in the Pauline communities. She claims that development can be traced since we have not only letters from Paul himself, but also the Pastoral epistles from the beginning of the second century, as well as Ephesians and Colossians, writings which are characteristic of the ambiguous period following the disappearance of the earliest authorities...read more